“Soulwax is a rock band”
2 Many DJs
2 Many DJs
Soulwax
Soulwax in mode Dia de los Muertos
Friday night, October 31, 2008. The weather was crisp, the girls were mostly naked, and the streets were lined with youths waiting to get into the HARD Haunted Festival. After a very thorough security search (including a pat-down on the chest), I was finally admitted in. One hour later the entire place was jam packed with smelly, sweaty bodies and loud sounds of amazing music vibrating throughout the festival grounds.
Navigating this place was a nightmare! There were four stages, and to get to two of them you had to go through one. People were scrambling and stumbling back and forth all night in a constant stream of, “I need to get to this stage where so-and-so is playing next!” while attempting not to trip over the semi-lifeless bodies of candy kids rolling like the ’90s still existed.
I ended up seeing 2 Many DJ’s throw down a killer set for my first show. Amazing. The crowd was enjoying it so much that even girls with too many rolls to be naked started peeling off their shirts and throwing them on stage! Fast forward to behind a different outdoor stage…
The Soulwax boys were getting dressed up for their show, and donning their white suits. There was velcro present and masks reminiscent of Dia de los Muertos. Justice was running around in the midst of it all trying to keep from being vandalized by a 16 year old girl with braces and a penchant for going overboard on drugs and screwing headliners. The Crookers gave me lessons in Italian, Simian Mobile Disco was wrapping up on stage, and my own search for booze went incomplete.
Their show in a word: fantastic. The kids were jumping, singing along, and the vibe was, for a small amount of time, pure music enjoyment.
After their set was done I followed the Belgians back to their tour bus and jumped into champagne, a Lucky Strike, and an interview to discuss their docu-film “Part of the Weekend Never Dies”. To put it into perspective for those of you unfamiliar… Take the energy of rock and sex appeal of electro, put it in a blender and that is SOULWAX, the Belgian group composed of David Dewaele, Stephen Dewaele, Stefaan Van Leuven and Steve Slingeneyer.
Most of us are familiar with Soulwax by their work as related to the band, 2 Many DJs, Radio Soulwax, and most recently, their docu-film “Part of the Weekend Never Dies“. It was an incredible film that captured the essence of life on the road, life in the party, and everything that encompasses the in-between. Commentary in the film includes the likes of Justice, Busy P, LCD Soundsystem, and the editing is done so well that when watching, your adrenaline shoots up and you feel like you’re back in the show with killer music and crisp colors.
And now, a brief discussion with Soulwax…
bisouK: How long did it take to edit “Part of the Weekend Never Dies”?
David: I’d say six (6) months.
bK: What has the reception been like thus far from audiences and fans?
DD: One of the things about the way the industry is changing is that I don’t think you get any bad response because now there’s so much output from everywhere that people who don’t like it just won’t see it.
bK: How did your performance ensembles come together?
DD: We think when people go on stage they should make an effort. And because it’s white it’s a source of light because when you put light on white, it reflects. And the tuxedos is because we like things to be classy.
bK: The girls shown in the film kind of give off a 60’s free love vibe, was this intentionally shown or is that really the feel?
DD: Honestly I don’t know the answer, we are visually influenced by so many things from that era, but it wasn’t a conscious effort.
bK: Are you guys feeling more of Soulwax right now or 2 Many DJs as far as work is concerned?
DD: Right we now I’m feeling food…but yeah it changes every day. Things happen, you don’t know why things happen…We don’t pretend like we know what we’re doing.
bK: Is it safe to say this film was your way of doing a film like a DJ set, based on the editing of the images and sounds? Was this the goal?
DD: Great. Thank you, that’s an intention. That’s actually, when we had all the footage of 18 months of this, it’s very hard to make something exciting that would stand the test of time and cover all the bases of what we wanted to explain… the show the boredom.. we wanted to show the other sides.. All these kids are here and they’re watching Justice now and they must think “Wow, to only be in that position would be incredible”. We tried to show that it’s not that incredible… It’s heavier, maybe, than people imagine. Especially the way we do it… There’s not many people that produce and DJ and play all at the same time. But, it’s logical.
bK: Who are you currently remixing and when can we expect those out?
DD: Honestly, it’s tough but we had to turn down some people that we really would have loved to have remixed and we turned down some really big names that would have been nice to remix.. but we did “Night Versions“, which is remixes of ourselves… basically the last two years all we’ve done is remixes. We’re a little remixed out, but who knows maybe in three months we’ll come out with something.
bK: What are the basic energy level differences in the crowds of the different countries you play in?
DD: Not that big of a difference. I’ll say that there are two exceptional ones: States and Japan. Not good or bad, exceptionally different.. for example here I feel like it’s really something of it’s time. For example, if we do a Radio Soulwax gig in Barcelona, it’ll be sold out and there’s a sense of understanding. These people know where we come from they’ve supported us from the beginning, and they’ll probably be there in two years time. But here in the States it’s like all of the sudden, they’ve seen footage of how kids in Europe are doing it, and they think, “This is how we should do it”. That makes for something you don’t really trust that much. I have a feeling we could come back in a year and people will be like whatever. And in japan it’s almost the reverse in respect but also similar in that it’s new. But they’re so obsessed in every detail. It’s not a bad thing, though.
bK: Who was most involved in editing with Kurt Augustyn?
DD: Steph did most of the editing for the whole film and then Steph and I did the music.
bK: Did he have more or less free reign or was there a specific set of parameters? Or he start editing and then you came with Yes or No?
Stephen D: A little of both. There was a lot of stuff I said no. At one point Kurt had done something and I had really really liked it. And we used that as a starting point and just went from there.
bK: Outside of music, what art/fashion influences what you are doing and/or who you are as a band?
DavidD: The truth is that everything influences you. It’s hard because we have, Steph and I, absorbed so much pop culture. We buy so many DVDs and books that it’s hard for me to say just one thing.
bK: If you had to give advice, after doing Soulwax, Radio Soulwax, POTWND, and 2 Many DJs…what would you say to those out there aspiring to be on such a level?
DD: Don’t do it! We don’t know anything about how it happened, things just happen. Either you go ‘once upon a time’ or you have no idea how things came to this.
bK: So after 120+ shows, one camera, editing, premiers, etc. is there the possibility of another Soulwax film?
DD: Nothing like this, nothing about us. We really want to get into multimedia. In fact, old media is what we’re interested in.
And with that the tourbus took off to Mexico.
Can’t get enough of HARD Haunted Mansion debauchery? Check out these fun photos by LA kid Caesar Sebastian…
deadmau5
Justice
Boys Noize
DJ AM
*Special thanks to the Soulwax group, Michel, Hugo for the Luckys, Maarten for helping me get around, Dana at Biz3 PR, and Caesar Sebastian for the use of his photos.
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